


I Spy

by Dien



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: M/M, Masturbation, Spying, Surveillance, Voyeurism, wanking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-08
Updated: 2013-11-08
Packaged: 2017-12-31 20:30:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1036060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dien/pseuds/Dien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>WOW THIS FIC IS SO OLD. Something I wrote back in Season 1 with Finch spying on Reese, jerking off, and Reese finding out. NOT A VERY ORIGINAL PREMISE.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Spy

New York in summer is a very specific kind of hell, John Reese thinks as he tosses and turns on his hotel bed.  
  
It's funny-- he's been hot places, Syria, Iraq, Mexico-- known sweat trickling down the back of his neck and soaking his clothes-- but somehow all of those blistering hellholes pale in comparison to the Big Apple in the middle of a July heat wave.   
  
Another job done, another Number saved, and the last he's had from Finch was 'take the day off, Mr. Reese, after that little escapade I think you need it'.   
  
At the time he didn't argue. Back to the hotel room to change his clothes, wash the chlorine off him with cold water, and then take a nap-- that sounded fantastic. The shower certainly helped, but despite turning the hotel's AC to freezing he hasn't been able to sleep. It should be easy, let his body relax into the mattress and let the drone of the AC drown everything out but--  
  
Every time his eyes close, he remembers yesterday afternoon, the briefing on the Number. Finch, who Reese is pretty sure is the most stubborn man he's ever met (including himself), doesn't have air conditioning in the library, and it is accordingly a sweltering den.   
  
He'd given the other man a disbelieving look when he'd entered to find him still in his buttoned-up suits, despite the sweat clearly beaded on his brow. Finch had said that the air conditioning would cause a spike in the library's power usage, not an acceptable security risk, and his sole concession to the ninety degrees inside had been a small oscillating desk fan.  
  
At the time there'd been more important things to worry about than Finch giving himself probable heat exhaustion.  
  
Right now, though, Reese is staring at the ceiling, idly replaying the bead of sweat trickling down Finch's jawline then down his neck to be soaked up by a double-stitched shirt collar. Finch sitting so damn straight in that chair when even Reese was leaning against the stone wall of the library for a bit of wilted relief.  
  
His mysterious employer-slash-partner-slash.... whatever it is, whatever they are to each other... just plain _never relaxes._  
  
Even John relaxes sometimes. It's impossible to live 24/7 in the tension before the bullet hits. He's known agents who cracked trying to do it.  
  
Reese exhales, punches the pillow, and squirms under the sheets over to the other side of the bed where it's cool and his own body heat hasn't permeated. Finch's problem is just that, his problem. He's going to nap. Eyes firmly _shut_ again.  
  
...Finch's hands, tap-tap-tapping over the keys. It's a staccato rhythm that is nothing like gunfire, a noise that John's gotten quite used to hearing in his ear now over the last half-a-year. For all of Finch's physical stiffness there's not a damn thing wrong with his hands, long-fingered and agile and always moving over the keys. Fine motor control, John supposes absently, to do the soldering and all the rest of it the other man's shown skill at. He smiles crookedly at memories-- Finch laying a hand on an external hard drive once as if to calm it, Finch taking a memory chip from its slot on a motherboard with the delicate care another man might touch his lover.  
  
Jesus, the guy's a geek.  
  
Not that Reese is judging, exactly. They're both out in their respective no-man's-lands, and if Finch is a dysfunctional genius who understands computers way better than people, well, Reese himself is little more than a trained weapon, and it's been over a year since he touched a woman's body and less than hours since he last touched a gun.   
  
Finch's dysfunctions are the less fucked up of the two, probably.  
  
He tries to turn his thoughts elsewhere. Counting the sounds of footsteps moving past in the hall, listening to the barely audible noise of TV next door.  
  
Finally Reese throws off the sheet and gets to his feet, his nearly-bare body goosepimpling in the arctic blast from the AC. His suit trousers are still hung over the shower rack to dry; he puts on his single pair of jeans instead, grabs the clean shirt, heads for the door.  
  
Outside the hotel lobby the heat hits him like a fist again and John grunts. Sunglasses on, at least the glare off the pavement is reduced, and then he scans the street, sharp eyes darting between shopfronts and around the steady flow of pedestrians.  
  
One quick stop and a cash transaction later, and he's got two to-go pints of frozen yogurt in his hands. They'd had a green tea flavor; he amuses himself with Finch's possible reaction. Disgust is most likely, a lecture on the artificial flavorings. It should be fun.  
  
John Reese breaks one of his own cardinal rules and hails a taxi. If there's any CIA hitman trailing him into this heat he's currently willing to risk it for the sake of an air-conditioned ride.  
  
Prudence hasn't entirely deserted him, though-- he has the cab drop him off three blocks away. Just going to have to walk the rest, even though it may mean he's holding so much green tea soup by the time he gets inside.  
  
Acceptable risks. Reese whistles a little as he strolls along, restless energy lending a bounce to his feet against the pavement.  
  
***  
  
It is _damnably_ hot.   
  
Finch is quite aware that he's not really getting any work done, that he's mostly staring at the screens and contemplating heat loss and liquid-cooled systems and imagining his own internal temperature slowly rising to a red bar.   
  
He should shut the machines down for the day and go home, or one of his homes, anyway. Maybe the one with the custom bathtub, built to accommodate his bad leg and the difficulties of climbing in and out. Draw a cool bath and soak for about an hour, until he feels human again.  
  
Yes. Clearly this would be the most logical course of action. If only it didn't require him to _move._  
  
The heat makes him irritable too; he finds his tie and layers to be abruptly and spontaneously intolerable, after several hours in which he had stubbornly told himself they were fine. Since there's no one to see, at least, he doesn't have his own pride in the way to doing what he wants: yanking the tie loose with a few quick motions, tossing it onto the desk, and then starting the tedious process of getting his jacket and vest off without accidentally letting his arm get past its comfortable range of motion.  
  
Two years and he's still having to teach his body what is and isn't acceptable, which annoys him. Computers generally only need to be told things once.  
  
He's breathing hard and the back of his dress shirt is damp with sweat when he finally tosses the vest to the desk as well. At least he has the excuse of the library's heat; it'll be a sad day when the mere act of taking off his jacket causes him to be out of breath, he reflects sullenly. Finch leans back in his chair, attempting to relax against it to the full extent allowed by his fused vertebrae.  
  
His right hand moves independent of the rest of his body, crawls to the keyboard, taps _play_ again.  
  
He likes watching Reese in motion.  
  
Not the violence, no. Not the hitting and punching and shooting-- despite every logical thing his mind can say, despite the often mountainous evidence of criminal nature and wrongdoing, Harold Finch cannot suppress a wince every time John Reese sends a bullet through somebody's kneecap. He feels it in his own leg, every damn time he's had the misfortune of having visual surveillance on the deed.  
  
But the other times. When Reese is... running, or climbing a fire escape. Leaning close to someone to do that _thing_ he does so well, that violation of personal space that is often half-flirt and half-threat, with his voice dropped half-an-octave.   
  
God help him, he even likes watching Reese _walk_. There's something fluid about his stride which Finch knows he's certainly never possessed, not even when he was running a mile a day in Central Park.  
  
He's never met a man so very _in_ his body as Reese. The ex-spy is toned and muscled, of course, but it's not even that, it's something intangible, a _consciousness_ John has of his body.   
  
John Reese is never clumsy. John Reese doesn't trip. John Reese doesn't drop things.  
  
(John Reese also never limps, John Reese turns his head easily and never has to take a deep breath before sitting or standing-- but Harold has mostly managed to lose the envy, now. It's not Reese's fault that he's healthy and whole of body, any more than it's Reese's fault that Finch isn't.)  
  
Today's Number featured several quality minutes of John in motion. More that Finch hadn't gotten a chance to see, of course, but four minutes that had been captured on a home security camera, including when John had vaulted a neighbor's fence and tackled a would-be murderer into the swimming pool.  
  
He lets his eyes drink it down as if the water were actually there, cool and unnaturally aqua-turquoise. Here is Reese, a fluid athlete, over the fence like a jungle cat in his black-and-white. Here is Reese landing the crouch-roll-up and then exploding from it like a rocket, a blur that the camera can't follow, slamming into the running man and then they're both in the pool in a spray of water.  
  
Reese surfaces with his hair plastered to his head and that's the last clear frame for thirty or so seconds, everything a mess of froth and flailing limbs until Reese subdues the man.  
  
He leaves him for the police with a white life preserver jammed around him, pinning his arms to his sides (Finch had helplessly laughed aloud when he'd seen it the first time) (it's still worth a smile now) and then Reese is stalking away with his clothes just _stuck_ to his long body.  
  
The man called Harold Finch has had all the arguments with himself about invasion of privacy and exploitation of Reese and all the rest of it already. Many times.  
  
He justifies it. He has few pleasures, few creature comforts he permits himself. He's still only _human_. It's not like it would be morally better if he were spying on someone else for this purpose. And of course, the clincher, the final little white lie: what John Reese doesn't know won't hurt him.  
  
The clip ceases to be interesting when John climbs the fence again and exits the frame. Finch uses one hand to click it to start again. And his other reaches for the desk drawer.  
  
It's hidden under a layer of innocuous papers, another layer of circuit boards and a tangle of cords. Finch keeps his eyes fixed on the screen as his fingers find the hard plastic cylinder and pull it out.  
  
Here's John Reese, stalking down the sidewalk, before the pool. Finch's eyes track the easy swing of his shoulders and his fists, the way his weight shifts from foot to foot. The looks women throw him when he passes, which Reese either doesn't notice or pretends not to notice.  
  
Reese has undone the top two buttons of his white shirt, a concession to the heat, and for half a second the sunlight hits his skin just right and causes the light sheen of sweat at the hollow of his throat to make it gleam and Finch sighs, a little exhale between his parted lips, even if he's watched it ten times now.  
  
Right. He is still overdressed. Finch puts the flashlight on the desk as more clips of John unplay in high-definition on the screen. He's got quite a virtual library of John Reese, now. He used to tell himself it was just needing to know what his brand-new operative was up to.   
  
He hasn't bothered with _that_ lie in a while.  
  
Here's John Reese changing a soot-smudged shirt for a clean one, the powerful curve of his back briefly visible at the edge of the screen, the working muscles of his shoulders. Here's John Reese scaling a wall, his suit trousers taut over his ass as he straddles the top. Here's John Reese coming out of the pool again, chest muscles semi-visible beneath the soaked white fabric.   
  
Harold takes a slow, shaky breath as he settles his head back against the chair's headrest in one of the few positions it's comfortable. He's using one hand to methodically undo his shirt buttons. And the other to rest over his groin, stroke himself through the tailored fabric of his trousers.   
  
Clip after clip plays on the screen, reflected in Harold's glasses. He feels his pulse speeding up, his lungs expanding and contracting in his chest.   
  
Self-pity is a foe to keep at constant bay, with reminders that he was _lucky_ , that his injuries would have meant a wheelchair if not worse for anyone else without his money and access to resources, but all the reminders aside there are days when he thinks of his crippled body as a cage, bars of titanium and fused bone.   
  
A machine, and an ineffective one at that.  
  
Moments like these bring home he's still _alive_ , he is more than a thousand eyes and a disconnected intellect, more than a spider motionless at the center of his own web. No. Still very much human, even if that includes falling prey to temptation on occasion.  
  
Hearing his own shaky, stuttering breath in his ears is a sign of life. Experiencing his heart slamming at the bars of his ribcage is a sign of life. Feeling his cock swelling under his fingers is the same thing, and goddammit, he'd never expected this when he'd hired Reese, it hadn't been part of the equation.  
  
Finch's chest is bare to the warm air now, his dark wispy hair stuck to his skin with his own sweat. Reese is crossing a street – Reese is running with a loping, easy stride down a dock – Reese is stalking the halls of the library. Finch's fingers shake as he undoes his belt buckle, the little jingle the only sound he can hear other than his own erratic breathing, and then the buttons of his fly.   
  
His favorite clips are playing now. The pool, and those few seconds of grainy footage from the shower and the prize, the pièce de résistance, John jerking himself off the night he met Zoe Morgan, the only real sign of having physical needs that Finch has ever seen in the man.  
  
Here's John Reese with his head back against the hotel bed's headboard. John almost fully dressed, still in his driver's uniform, his prick out and his other hand gripping at the sheets.   
  
-here's John, wet from head to toe, clothes glued to his skin-  
  
-here's John, wet again, bare skin, shower drumming noiselessly against him-  
  
-here's John, eyes squeezed shut, the room's only lamp shining off his face, lips parted, hand working fast, faster...  
  
Finch fumbles for the 'flashlight', jerks the lid off with impatient, frustrated motions. He's on fire. He's sweating like a pig, this shirt's going to be all but ruined, doesn't matter, doesn't matter, on the screen John is arching and biting his lip to not make noise and Finch fumbles with the lubricant, desperate not to drop anything and have to stop for an excruciatingly-slow bend to pick it back up.  
  
Here's John. Here's John. The masturbation clip starts replaying. His glasses are fogging up but he knows every frame of this scene now, he can play it in his head almost as easily as he can click the mouse.  
  
His blood's pounding in his ears like raging surf and he can't see anything but the haze on his lenses, and certainly not the blinking icon down in the corner, the alert that someone's entered the library.  
  
***  
  
It's a fun game, sneaking up on Finch. John's not always sure if he's actually succeeding because Finch almost never gives away anything, not surprise, very rarely any clue that he was caught off guard. There'll just be the slow rotation of Finch's torso to face him, the arch of a brow, a measured _Mr. Reese._  
  
But it's fun all the same.  
  
So John's quiet as he pads through the empty halls and up to Finch's command center, the two cartons of nearly-melted yogurt still in his hands. His shirt's already sweat-damp again just in those three blocks. There's got to be something they can do to cool the library.  
  
There's no sounds of tapping keys, and he wonders if maybe Finch has come to his senses and gone home, somewhere cooler, but he doesn't really think so. Finch stays here, as near as he can tell, all the damn time except when he's perpetuating one of his cover identities. In a twisted way, John admires that-- it's the sort of dedication he'd use on a mission, but Finch isn't him and the man should go home sometime.  
  
Coming closer though and the spy's keen ears pick up on-- something, breathing, it's breathing but ragged and far too fast. Reese's eyes narrow and then widen.  
  
Damn Finch and his obstinacy, his secrecy. Reese has no real idea of his health issues beyond what he can deduce-- for all he knows Finch could have a damn heart problem, could have a hundred things wrong with him that he refuses to tell Reese and the labored breathing that Reese can currently hear doesn't sound like a man in healthy ease. Maybe Finch has had a heat stroke, maybe he fell, anything could happen when the other man's here all alone intent on boiling himself alive in a three-piece suit.  
  
Reese abandons stealth, doubling his pace for the desk and the consoles. Finch's ragged respiration only gets louder, like each gasp for air is a struggle, Christ, if Finch is having a heart attack or something where the hell is he supposed to take him, they need to talk about this--  
  
He rounds the corner, soles of his shoes skidding a little on the floor and the yogurts still clutched in his hands like surreal afterthoughts.  
  
Finch. Finch is-- there, in his chair before his computer, his slight body jerking helplessly-- _Oh Jesus don't be having a seizure, Finch_ \--  
  
John is halfway to him before he sees the black thing Finch has over his groin. Before he registers Finch's white dress shirt is open revealing a strip of sweaty chest and quivering belly, pale skin and a dusting of dark hair. Before he sees that Finch's glasses are askew on his face, the lenses fogged up. Before he processes that Finch's body isn't jerking in an epileptic fit but _thrusting_.  
  
John hasn't often been speechless in his life. He is now. Staring. The yogurts drop from his hands and he barely notices, other than an oddly-composed part of his mind observing that Finch's likely going to make him clean that up.  
  
Finch's face _(Harold's face)_ is a picture in contradiction, focused desperate intent warring with a shuddering abandon. There's something going on on the computer but Finch can't possibly see the images with his glasses steamed up like they are.   
  
Finch's fingers are gripping the black case, jamming it up and down on himself, his other hand clenched on the edge of the desk, and out of everything it's his hands that Reese's gaze somehow locks on. Grabbing so hard that they're white-knuckled, that the tendons stand out on the backs of his hands and his carefully-trimmed fingernails are biting into the desk's wood.   
  
John catches himself wondering, completely incongruously, how strong Finch's grip might be.  
  
Finch gasps, a noise that sucks the air from Reese's lungs in empathy, and his whole body jerks in a way that's almost painful to see  
  
“ _John,_ ” Finch utters, a word so strangled that for one paralyzed second Reese thinks he's actually being addressed, that the other man _knows he's there_. But Finch's head, dark hair spiky and sweat-beaded, isn't looking his direction-- isn't looking anywhere at all.   
  
Finch's face is slack, shiny with perspiration, his cheeks a dull sunburn red. His lips-- so often pursed together, in prim disapproval of one John Reese-- parted, his breath coming in hot pants between them.  
  
On the screen, John Reese jerks off in a tight loop, over and over. Reese continues to stare.   
  
The CIA trains you to anticipate a hell of a lot of things, but this isn't one of them.   
  
***  
  
When, oh when, will he remember to take his glasses off first? Of course, if he does that then the screen is blurry, which isn't really acceptable.  
  
Finch groans. The high of release is fading and his body is almost immediately protesting. His spine, not just his neck but all through it, his sciatic nerve from his left leg right down to his knee. There's a reason he doesn't do this terribly often, but like an alcoholic's hangover, it only comes clear _afterwards._  
  
Finch eases the fleshlight off his slowly softening cock with a grunt, his other hand releasing from the desk to drag his glasses off his face. The world goes from a gray haze to just a blur, which is slightly better.   
  
He's going to be dehydrated, his mind supplies. A lot of his body's moisture just got transferred to his clothes. He thanks his mind for this information in irritation, wishing not for the first time in his life that he could just get his ever-analyzing brain to shut _up_.  
  
Another deeeep breath. His fingers fumble blindly on the desk until he finds the sex toy's lid, screw it back onto the plastic case. He'll take it home, clean it out there. It's definitely time to go home.   
  
Finch tries to tell himself he feels better, a little more relaxed at least. As usual, it's not entirely true. The moment is always so damn good, but just as his body starts reminding him that some things are ill-advised in the aftermath, his conscience starts talking as well once the endorphins fade.  
  
 _Delete the videos. It's not fair to Reese. This isn't right._  
  
He's had this conversation with himself many times too. The conclusion's the same as it was three weeks ago, and the month before that.  
  
 _Next time. After next time, I will._  
  
Gathering his things to go home takes forever. Rebuttoning his shirt, with a grimace of distaste for the way the sweat-soaked fabric moves against his skin; collecting his vest and jacket and tie, turning the computers to standby. Fans groan loud in the silence as computers whir to sleep.  
  
He's managed to stand upright and take a step from his chair before he sees it. Something out of a picture by Dada in how utterly out-of-place it is:  
  
On the floor, two yogurt cups, bright colors and Styrofoam and plastic lids, with a little frozen yogurt seeping out of one of them.  
  
Finch stares, willing an explanation for the anomaly before him. There isn't one.  
  
How could-- what-- how--  
  
Reese. Reese, John Reese is the only explanation, nobody else even knows the library _exists--_  
  
Harold jerks back to his computer and waits for it to wake back up, teeth gritted, even the few seconds for it to come out of hibernation are too slow right now, too maddeningly long.  
  
He taps the keys with shaking fingers, brings up the library's security cameras. Like a cosmic joke at his expense, the scene plays out before him. Surveillance for surveillance. Karma. Reese bursting into the room, skidding to a stop, standing there and-- just-- watching-- him.  
  
Harold feels something in his gut that's very like panic. John _knows_. Reese knows, Reese-- leaves, just turns on his heel and stalks back out, dear God. Dear God, what was he _thinking?_   
  
John is going to leave. Not that he can blame him. Finding out your so-called employer has illicit videos of you and is jerking off to them-- what, what, what was he _doing,_ jeopardizing their work with his own weakness, his pathetic fantasies?  
  
Finch draws back from the screen, closing his eyes against the damning evidence before him. An apology, he's going have to-- to try, although he can't imagine what he can possibly say. But he owes Reese that at least, an apology.  
  
His fingers are trembling as he laboriously bends to scoop up the yogurts, toss them into the trash. John Reese never drops things. John Reese never drops things.  
  
Right.  
  
Finch's halting steps echo in the hall as he heads for the exit, his own sweat feeling cold and clammy on his body now despite the muggy heat of the library. His mind is in crisis control mode, as it was when Root had compromised the system.  
  
If Reese leaves, what is he going to do? He has contingencies for everything but that.   
  
He stops at one point, digs out his phone with a half-baked idea of texting John. But there's absolutely nothing he can think to say right now, his mind wiped by heat and sex and panic. He breathes in and out, slowly, and then shoves the phone back into his pocket with shaking fingers.   
  
The door's up ahead. Finch trudges for it, jaw set with a steadiness he doesn't remotely feel.  
  
But there's another anomaly. A yellow square against the blackness of the door, a note. Finch's gut clenches but he forces himself to keep walking closer. A goodbye, a condemnation, a threat-- whatever he is, he has to brace himself for it, accept it and plan accordingly.  
  
He limps the last few feet, raises his hand to pull the Post-It note from the door. Reese's bold handwriting stares back at him, the firm slant to his letters, the tight capitals:  
  
 _You win, Finch:  
Next time I'll knock._


End file.
